Today I’m happy to announce that Facebook will be offering fellowships to support graduate students in the 2010-2011 school year. The program will provide tuition, stipend and other perks to lucky students whose applications are chosen. Lots more details can be found on the Facebook Fellowship page. The areas are quite broad, and reflect theContinue reading “Introducing Facebook Fellowships”
Category Archives: Research
Venturing to the tail
It’s now second nature to think that the top 1% of media account for an overwhelming percentage of overall sales. But how many people actually consume content from the more obscure parts of Netflix’s catalog? Sharad and Co. at Yahoo! Research just released the results of some research looking at how users fit into long-tailContinue reading “Venturing to the tail”
Maintained Relationships on Facebook
We were asked a simple question: is Facebook increasing the size of people’s personal networks? This is a particularly difficult question to answer, so as a first attempt we looked into the types of relationships people do maintain, and the relative size of these groups. While the average Facebook user communicates with a small subset of their entire friend network, they maintain relationships with a group two times the size of this core. This not only affects each user, but also has systemic effects that may explain why things spread so quickly on Facebook.
Regionalism and religiosity
This map on religion and regionalism is fascinating, and reminds me a lot of the pop/soda/coke regional map.
Metafilter metadata released
Metafilter has released the metadata for all of their sites, including comments, favorites and contacts. I think it’s excellent that they are taking the time to do this, and hopefully a few academics will recognize the value of such a compact, influential community that has amazing historical data. (via waxy)
Not the norm
Whenever I am selected as part of a survey panel, online or otherwise, I nearly always take the opportunity. I am “one of those people” who creates self-selection bias. I am a perennial student of surveys, and always interested in what researchers and marketers are trying to understand. I received an invitation this morning byContinue reading “Not the norm”
Commuting and social life
I was pleased when Chad directed me to the New Yorker piece on commuting last year which garnered much attention. I myself have spent quite a bit of time on the highways of 101, 280 and 237, not to mention countless trips down the peninsula on the Caltrain. What Chad directed me to, though, wasContinue reading “Commuting and social life”
Richard Hamming: “You and your research”
In 1986, Richard Hamming gave a talk at the Naval Postgraduate school entitled “You and your research” relating his experience working with some of the best scientists of the last century. It’s a must-read for anyone who does research for a living, and probably applies to just about any line of work. A few ofContinue reading “Richard Hamming: “You and your research””
The peak-end rule
In reading The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz, I came across one of those pieces of research that just keeps coming up in conversation, so I’ll post it here. The theory is known as “peak-end rule,” as expressed by psychologist Daniel Kahneman, describes the way that people remember events by the peak and theContinue reading “The peak-end rule”
Deutschland!
I like to bunch up all of my stressful events into short periods of time. In the past few weeks I have moved to a new apartment in Hayes Valley, rented my old place to a subletter, walked into the cloistered halls of academia and am currently sitting in my friend Jussi’s apartment in Berlin:Continue reading “Deutschland!”
overstated 